The 2013 Public Management Research Association (PMRA) Conference, University of Madison-Wisconsin, Madison, WI., 20-22 June 2013. How to Cite?

Abstract

Many experts have observed that bureaucratic malaises are endemic in public sector organizations. These so-called “diseases,” which include personnel constraints, red tape and risk avoidance, can discourage workers, damage organizational performance, and lower the quality of public services. The depth and impact of these malaises are tested across the public and nonprofit sectors using data from the third National Administrative Studies Project (NASP III). NASP III surveyed randomly selected managers in public and nonprofit organizations in Georgia and Illinois. Multiple informant data are aggregated to the organizational level resulting 47 public and 64 nonprofit organizations for further analysis. Multivariate statistical analysis suggests that most of the maladies have harmful effects on work quality in the public sector, but not on the nonprofit agencies studied in this sample. The results further show that task clarity does not mitigate the performance effects of these maladies in the public sector whereas in the nonprofit sector it is associated with higher levels of performance. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The 2013 Public Management Research Association (PMRA) Conference, University of Madison-Wisconsin, Madison, WI., 20-22 June 2013.

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dc.identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10722/187912

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dc.description.abstract

Many experts have observed that bureaucratic malaises are endemic in public sector organizations. These so-called “diseases,” which include personnel constraints, red tape and risk avoidance, can discourage workers, damage organizational performance, and lower the quality of public services. The depth and impact of these malaises are tested across the public and nonprofit sectors using data from the third National Administrative Studies Project (NASP III). NASP III surveyed randomly selected managers in public and nonprofit organizations in Georgia and Illinois. Multiple informant data are aggregated to the organizational level resulting 47 public and 64 nonprofit organizations for further analysis. Multivariate statistical analysis suggests that most of the maladies have harmful effects on work quality in the public sector, but not on the nonprofit agencies studied in this sample. The results further show that task clarity does not mitigate the performance effects of these maladies in the public sector whereas in the nonprofit sector it is associated with higher levels of performance. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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dc.language

eng

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dc.relation.ispartof

Public Management Research Association (PMRA) Conference

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dc.rights

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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dc.title

Bureaucratic malaises and their remedies in Public and Nonprofit Organizations